ZaZa’s was an idea brought to life by the hard work of three brothers born and raised in Brantford to Italian immigrants. It was our first trip to southern Italy when we were 12, 10 and 6 years old respectively when we discovered that pizza in Italy was not like the pizza in Canada.

We were pleasantly surprised by the taste, texture, flavour and unique aroma of the pizza in Italy. It was thin crust and cooked in old fashioned wood-fired ovens. It was so amazing to see the different restaurants and pizzerias all using the wood-fired oven. The blast of wood fragranced heat emanating from those ovens was captivating. The lure of the flame next to the pizza, it was almost primitive. Unlike in Canada where you choose from a list of toppings to create your own pizza, they offered a list of already created pizzas with various names attached to them like the Margarita, for example.

Naples is where pizza was “created”. The authentic Neapolitan pizza Margarita; is the base for most kinds of pizza made with tomato, mozzarella and basil. Each region in Italy has their own unique pizza for which they are known. All this history, culture and passion for great food left us in awe. From our very first trip to Italy we knew that one day we wanted to open our very own ‘pizzeria’.